Biography

Education

MFA in Painting, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Graduate Courses in Paris, Switzerland, Italy

MA in Visual Design, School of Design, North Carolina State
University

BA in Painting and Drawing, East Carolina University

Corporate and Private Collections (Selected list)

• Wachovia Bank Corporation
• Carolantic Realty
• Lee and Peggy Iacocca, Italy
• Dr. Harald von Elmendorff, Germany

Exhibitions and Commissions (Selected list)

• New Directions '08: 24^th Annual National Jurried Contemporary Art Exhibition
  The Barrett Art Center Galleries, Poughkeepsie, NY
  October 25 - November 22, 2008
• Discovering Contemporary Art in the Carolinas: 35^th Annual Juried Exhibition for North & South Carolina Artists. Fayetteville Museum of Art, Fayetteville, NC
  March 18–May 6, 2007
• Commissioned portraits, landscapes, still lifes, drawings
  Current
• Commissioned landscapes for Wachovia Corporate Collection. Winston-Salem, NC
  1996-2004
• 3 Artists Summer Exhibition. Greensboro, NC
  May 2000
• Solo Show. Artistic Impressions Gallery, Greensboro, NC
  October 1997
• Solo Show. Eagle Gallery, Raleigh, NC
  June 1997
• Juried Group Show. Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensboro, NC
  May 1996
• La Grange National Juried Biennial. La Grange Museum of Art, La Grange, Georgia
  April 1996
• Wheels - National Juried Invitational Exhibition. Fine Arts Gallery, Davie, Florida
  February 1996
• International Juried Art Show. Skopje Gallery. Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
  June 1995

Artist Statement

I find inspiration in many sources: people particularly, nature, and dream imagery. Much of my reading is about culture, mythology, and allegory so this intertwines with what I see to then shape what I paint and draw.

When I create a portrait, it is both fascinating and absorbing. I enjoy the early stages of sketching my client informally, talking with them, and getting to know them as they relax into themselves. This vitality, this distilled essence of their persona is what I strive to capture in their portrait.

Growing up, I spent summers on my grandparents’ farm. The close association with planting, growing, and the daily tending of animals is reflected in my landscapes and in my still life works. The earth – gathered, shaped – suggests a need, a purpose. It either lies in stasis, waiting, or is energetic with activity, engrossed in the process of becoming.

Later, I lived for several years on a mountaintop in western North Carolina. Here, I was in direct contact with a nature that was now both glorious and tempestuous, inspiring and isolating. This time influences much of my current charcoal and pastel drawings which often deal with themes of metamorphosis and my paintings of vivid horses thundering through my dreams.

Along with nature and dreams, my study of mythology and allegory, as well as cultural and Jungian themes are especially important muses which sometimes transform my presentation of women and men into archetypes. Artemisia Gentileschi, Judy Chicago, The Guerilla Girls, Georgia O’Keeffe, Magdelena Abakanovich and icons of pop culture are critical influences. I may also respond purely to the simple beauty of a life study with the model and the very humanness of their pose.

My work and my themes are diverse. The one constant, however, is my deep admiration for the process - the evolution, the transformation, the ongoing creation of the art, the artist, and the collector through the realization of a work.